Since we’ve been teaching ordinal numbers lately, I figured
I’ll continue the trend.
1st: Last week I went to visit one of the beaches
in Vietnam for the first time. I had been to Saigon three years ago; as the bus
approached the city I realized how clean it is compared to Phnom Penh. The
dozens of high-rise apartments and millions of motos in Saigon dwarf the
Cambodian capital that I have come to think of as monstrous metropolis. I
ventured to Mui Ne, a small resort town on the South China Sea. The first day I
biked around the sleepy town. For the next two days, I basically did nothing
but sit poolside, read, and catch up on my Car Talk and 60 Minutes podcasts. It
was heaven.
Another 1st: My yoga practice has gone
international! There is a studio in Phnom Penh that I have been meaning to
visit so I slipped in for a class last weekend. The instructor is Australian
and there is a Khmer instructor who translates, although at the class I
attended there weren’t many non-English speakers. I will definitely return.
2nd: For the second time, I picked up a new APCA
volunteer from Phnom Penh and showed her around the ‘big’ city. Diana is going
to be an awesome addition to APCA. She came incredibly well prepared and has a
TON of donations. Plus, she even has teaching experience! Imagine that –
someone who actually knows what they’re doing! I’m excited to be at APCA with
her.
3rd: I visited my favorite place in Phnom Penh
for the third (maybe fourth?) time: International Book Center. They have
virtually every school supply, sporting equipment, party supply, teaching
material, and little random necessity you never thought you’d need. I bought an
English grammar textbook for the kids in my big kid class and then had them
copied. The city is littered with three things: pharmacies, dentists, and copy
centers. I was able to get 13 copies of a 267 page book for about $30. Thank
you Aunt Helene for your donation – I put it to good use! I passed the books
out today in class and the kids couldn’t wait to fill in all the blanks.
5th: For anyone who was wondering if I have
continued to visit Lhysa the blind masseuse, the answer is YES! Guess how many
times I’ve gone? In fact, they love me there so much that my $7/hour rate has
decreased to $6/hour. Not a bad deal.
Some more developments:
Every evening the three of us volunteers hop on bikes and
ride to Amret, a micro-lending office down the street. Their staff has asked us
to teach them every day, so now we end our evenings conversing with 10
incredibly eager and energetic twenty-something business men and women. They
were the first people I have come across in two months who have been able to
point to a map and tell me exactly where I am right now. I have gotten to know
PP pretty well only because if I don’t, and solely rely on a map to show a moto
driver, I’ll end up miles from where I intended to go. Before this week, I just
knew APCA was about an hour northwest of PP. For some strange reason, it feels
better to know my exact location.
Speaking of location, I have decided to be located in
Cambodia for an extra two months! Yep, I’m extending my stay! Instead of coming
home May 1st, I’ll return sometime in July. That means two extra
months for anyone to come visit us!
Have you ever gone hunting for dried cow poop in the middle
of a rice field with 60 kids? If your answer is no, I’ll brief you about it so
when the opportunity arises, you’ll be prepared.
First, you will have children try to explain to you what cow
poop is. Next, you will follow a group of bigger boys who are in charge of
lugging the big straw baskets around. Your job is to scavenge up as much dried
poop as you can find and throw it in the baskets. It’s really just like an
Easter egg hunt since the poop is camouflaged and takes effort to locate. Then,
you will have children try to include you in their game of tag, which involves
throwing the poop. Others will come up to you with an unpeeled banana in one
hand and a wad of rather fresh poop in the other. They’ll offer you the banana,
and when you politely decline they’ll stuff it in their mouths. Girls will come up to you and shove crabs
into your face – apparently poop hunting isn’t exciting enough for some, so
they choose to search for the mini crabs that can be unearthed from the 3 inch wide
holes in the ground. Once the baskets are full enough, you will be told that
you have collected a sufficient amount to fertilize the flower beds. This is
when you’ll be informed (as you leave
the fields) that you should never go close to those 3 inch wide holes because
of the..…ummmm, what do you call it in English? Oh yeah, cobras.
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